


I Know You

by thimble



Series: SASO 2017 [4]
Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Dreamsharing, Dreamwalking, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-20
Updated: 2017-07-20
Packaged: 2018-12-04 18:27:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,294
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11560878
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thimble/pseuds/thimble
Summary: The first time Ushijima sees Oikawa, neither of them are awake.





	I Know You

**Author's Note:**

> written for [this](http://sportsanime.dreamwidth.org/22341.html?thread=12634181#cmt12634181) prompt.
> 
> happy birthday oikawa take two

The first time Ushijima sees Oikawa, they are both nine years old, and neither of them are awake.

It is not rare for Ushijima to stumble upon other people like this, wandering in and out of his dreams, the way he must also wander in and out of theirs. Not all of them are strangers—he stumbles into people he knows in waking life, but they never remember what transpired when they were asleep. This is the norm for dreams, Ushijima has come to realize, and he happens to be an anomaly. It's a little lonely, he admits, to befriend someone, only to have their memories of it wiped clean when they see each other the next day. Ushijima learns to not get so attached to anyone he meets.

This proves difficult when Oikawa Tooru occurs to him, fresh-faced and sitting in a patch of sun, preoccupied with digging through the dirt.

"What are you doing?" asks Ushijima, curious. The boy—whose name he does not yet know, at this point in time—doesn't look up.

"I'm looking for worms," says the boy, as if that is explanation in itself.

"Worms?" repeats Ushijima. The boy hums, plunging his hand into the soil. The tip of his tongue is sticking out from the corner of his mouth.

"I'm gonna put them down Iwa-chan's shirt."

"Who is Iwa-chan?"

"My best friend. And who are you?"

"Toshi," says Ushijima, without much thought. He amends, "Ushijima Wakatoshi."

"I'm Oikawa Tooru," says the boy—says Oikawa, or, as he prefers, "just call me Tooru. So are you just gonna stand there or are you gonna help me dig?"

Ushijima nods, without much thought again. It seems natural to give Oikawa everything he asks for.

 

* * *

 

They don't say goodbye, him and Oikawa. They simply willed the hours away, looking for worms to victimize this mysterious Iwa-chan with—it was for revenge, Oikawa had said, he's far too noble a guy to stir up trouble first—and then Ushijima had been woken up for school.

He spends the entirety of breakfast looking at his hands, hoping to find dirt under his nails, but of course there isn't any.

So that's that, he thinks, another friend lost to dreaming. Happy tenth birthday to him.

Except that isn't the case at all, because when he falls asleep that night, Oikawa is there again, in the same patch of sun, in the same pair of alien-patterned shorts, with the same focused expression. No worms this time, though.

This time, he's playing with a volleyball, which happens to be the language Ushijima understands best.

He doesn't alert Oikawa to his presence, merely content to watch Oikawa toss and serve from the unending pile of balls in the basket beside him. Oikawa's got good senses, Ushijima can tell, even if they're not as polished as they could be. He just needs to be trained in the right place, by the right person, like Ushijima is.

"How creepy, Toshi-chan," says Oikawa suddenly, glancing over his shoulder at Ushijima. "The least you can do is play with me."

"You knew I played too?" asks Ushijima, slightly impressed.

"You were staring," explains Oikawa, tossing another ball into the air and hitting it before it lands. "'But not like a 'how does he do that?' stare. More like an 'I'm gonna tell him everything he's doing wrong,' stare. Am I right?"

"I would not do that," lies Ushijima, frowning, since that was exactly what he'd been thinking.

Oikawa laughs, putting Ushijima on the defensive. "Uh-huh, okay, it's all over your face."

"It is not." Ushijima shifts the conversation to the other matter he'd been thinking of, but had been uncertain how to approach. "Would you toss for me?"

"Hm? Sure," says Oikawa, just like that taking another ball from the pile. "You ready?"

As a response, Ushijima steps back, and lifts his eyes to Oikawa's hands.

 

* * *

 

Oikawa becomes a constant in Ushijima's dreams, and though at first Ushijima did not have an inkling why that was the case—it did not happen to the other friends he'd made, in this place—a possible reason becomes startlingly clear.

"You ever wonder why we've never met in person yet, Toshi-chan?" asks Oikawa one day after they have both turned eleven years old, as if reading his mind, while they are both lying in their path of eternal sun. They're not spent from practice, a notion that seems impossible in dreaming; just content to lie on the ground, grass tickling their cheeks, dirt gathering under their nails.

"I don't," lies Ushijima, a small sacrifice to avoid a bigger lie, because he does not want to tell Oikawa _and I hope we never do_ , and have Oikawa take it the wrong way.

"You're lying," says Oikawa, making Ushijima's telltale cheeks burn in shame. But Oikawa only smiles, shrugging to himself. "But you're not any good at it, anyway. You'll tell me eventually."

 _I won't_ , Ushijima doesn't say. Because he won't know what to do in a world where Oikawa won't toss for his spikes, where Oikawa has forgotten his name.

 

* * *

 

When they are twelve, they report to each other that they have made their respective middle school volleyball club teams. Ushijima is not surprised about either of their results—he has been training diligently, and so has Oikawa, both in wakefulness and out of it.

"Tomorrow's the big match," says Oikawa, giddy from all his previous victories. He's radiant, and would still be, even if the sun wasn't shining directly on him. Ushijima tries to smile, but he has a big match tomorrow as well. He hopes it's merely coincidence.

"Do your best," he offers instead, softly, committing this picture of Oikawa—head tossed back, grin bright—to memory.

"Is that it, Toshi-chan? No tips? No good luck?"

"You wouldn't need luck if you do your best."

And at that, Oikawa's laughter, echoing across their open meadow; his eyes, staring fondly at Ushijima, and nowhere else.

 

* * *

 

Ushijima wakes up the next day, and finds that his worst nightmare has come true.

Because on the opposite side of the gym, on the team that will go against his, is a familiar boy with familiar hands. This is not how Ushijima had wanted their first meeting to go, if it had to happen at all.

As they head to their places on court, Oikawa's gaze locks with his own—only for a moment, a second split several ways, and then they flicker away.

So that's that, he thinks, setting his jaw against the warmth pooling behind his eyes. He should have learned his lesson long ago.

Throughout the match, he spikes the ball like it's his heart, and he's trying to throw it as far away from him as possible. The ball smacks the floor with a resounding thud each time, and each time, he sees the frustration building on Oikawa's face.

This is not how he'd wanted it to go.

Not the points piling up in his team's favor, not the grit of Oikawa's teeth as he misses a receive, and not the score that fails to account for how hard Oikawa has worked.

Ushijima's team wins both rounds. Oikawa's huddle around their bench, sniffling, and Oikawa is no exception. If Oikawa had remembered him, Ushijima would have made his way over, and rubbed Oikawa's back the way he did when Oikawa once cried to him in a dream, after a fight with Iwa-chan.

But Oikawa is no longer his to comfort; Oikawa is no longer his friend.

Now, he's just a stranger, one that Ushijima has ruthlessly beaten at volleyball. It's a fact that cannot be changed, no matter how badly he wishes it would've gone differently.

 

* * *

 

The next few years follow a similar pattern. He sees Oikawa only on the court, and Oikawa never wins against him. He had thought, perhaps, that after Oikawa's final defeat in middle school he would know better—that he would know he would be better off playing with Ushijima instead, but Oikawa does not follow him to Shiratorizawa.

Perhaps it had been unfair to expect it of him, because this Oikawa, the one in the waking world, does not know that Ushijima can hit his precise toss with the power it deserves.

It should be time for Ushijima to put the past behind him too, and for the most part, he has—and still, and still, if someone asks, there goes Oikawa's name again, escaping from his lips.

 

* * *

 

He is only able to be on the same team as Oikawa again after they have graduated high school, and ended up at the same university. He is not haughty enough to assume that Oikawa had followed him there, with Oikawa's words about pride still a disdainful melody in his mind. They've simply received similar offers, and arrived to the same conclusion.

Oikawa does not ignore him during the first few days of club, not as much as he simply does not address Ushijima unless he needs to. It's not disruptive, and isn't enough of a cause for concern to involve the seniors or the coach, but Ushijima thinks the situation can still be improved.

"Oikawa," he says, one day when everyone else has filed out of the locker room. Oikawa glances over his shoulder at him, so nostalgic of their first meetings that Ushijima struggles to stay composed. "I need to talk to you."

Oikawa raises an eyebrow at that, but he stops in his tracks. "Well, talk away, Ushiwaka-chan. We don't have all day."

"You harbor a grudge against me."

"I do not—"

"And I'd like you to stop."

"Hah! And you have the gall to wonder why I do."

Ushijima shakes his head, frustrated, once again, at how he cannot seem to anticipate Oikawa. "I apologize. I did not ask you to stay behind to— I apologize. For right now, and before."

Oikawa seems taken aback, but he smirks instead of letting his mouth fall open. "Go on."

"That is all."

"You're hopeless," says Oikawa, though he does not sound as irritated as before. "We'll have to work on that."

"I'm open to trying," says Ushijima, and that, finally, seems to have caught Oikawa by surprise.

 

* * *

 

It's easy, Ushijima thinks, becoming friends with Oikawa, once Oikawa was no longer so opposed to the idea. He wonders if it's cheating, because he's already done this before, but the idea would be doing Oikawa and himself a disservice. The two of them have changed since they were children, ten years ago, even if the base personalities are the same. They have both learned to take the lead, and though Ushijima has yet to tell anyone else, he would not mind following Oikawa the way he'd seen Seijou once do.

Oikawa, as a captain and as a friend, has a tendency to make others feel well taken care of. Each leap Ushijima takes to spike his toss is not a leap of faith, but of belief—the belief that he would score, because Oikawa had made it so.

"You don't need to look so awestruck every time, Ushiwaka-chan," says Oikawa, on one of their private practices. "The other wing spikers will think you're sucking up."

"But I am," says Ushijima, honestly, making Oikawa laugh.

"Now _I_ think you're sucking up."

"You know me well enough not to do that."

"Hey," says Oikawa, pausing, as if the revelation has just occurred to him. "Oh. I guess I do."

 

* * *

 

It's easy, Ushijima thinks, kissing Oikawa.

The aftermath of a party hosted by the volleyball club had the two of them walking back to their dorm, mildly inebriated but still making pleasant, if trivial conversation, with Ushijima's hand resting lightly on the small of Oikawa's back to support him, or perhaps to support himself.

They arrived outside Oikawa's room first, with Oikawa encountering slight difficulty in sliding his key into the lock. Ushijima had carefully pried his fingers from around the knob and done it himself, since his were steadier at that moment. The door had slid open, Oikawa had said, "my hero," and then he was pulling Ushijima into the room, pressing him up against the door, and kissing him.

And it's easy to follow his lead, like Ushijima had once imagined—to breathe when Oikawa breathes, to part his lips with Oikawa licks at his mouth. It's easy to get lost in the smell of Oikawa's sweat and cologne, in the taste of sake on his tongue, in the warmth of Oikawa's body against his own, until

"Toshi-chan," sighs Oikawa, and Ushijima stills like a statue. He doesn't need Oikawa to repeat it; he heard the words just fine. His head swims with the the knowledge, drunk on the possibility that,

"You remember?"

"Damn," says Oikawa, eyes suddenly alert. "I guess you do too."

"You weren't sure?" asks Ushijima, softly, because he's not certain he would've been brave enough, were he in Oikawa's place.

"No. It was an experiment—if you found it weird, I figured the alcohol would've made you forget by morning."

Ushijima tightens his hold around Oikawa's waist as he shakes his head. "No. I would not have— I didn't forget you."

Oikawa is a silent, for a moment, and Ushijima wonders if they're both thinking of the same thing—of all the years they've wasted, all that time they spent pretending they were enemies.

"Ever wish you did?" asks Oikawa, and Ushijima finds himself shaking his head again.

"Never." This time, it's him who kisses Oikawa first, chasing the old lies and uncertainties away. "Never, never, never."

"No need to tell me twice," murmurs Oikawa, the everlasting sun from their dreams present in his smile, and then he's kissing Ushijima back, here, now, in waking life.


End file.
